Virginia judge denies bid to block travel ban

By Matthew Barakat

Published
1:02 pm PDT, Friday, March 24, 2017

McLEAN, Va. — In a sweeping affirmation of presidential authority, a federal judge in Virginia ruled against a Muslim civil rights group that sought to block the Trump administration’s proposed travel ban.

The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga is at odds with rulings from federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland who have issued orders preventing the bulk of the executive order from taking effect.

Trenga had questioned at a hearing this week whether the injunction sought by the group is necessary, given the orders already in place from the Hawaii and Maryland judges.

But his 32-page decision goes far beyond that technical question, giving a major victory to the Trump administration and its authority to issue the order, which would temporarily ban immigration from six Muslim-majority countries and suspend the U.S. refugee program.

The legal issue, Trenga wrote, is not to determine whether the executive order “is wise, necessary, under- or over-inclusive, or even fair.”

The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, said his job is simply to determine whether the order “falls within the bounds of the President’s statutory authority or whether the President has exercised that authority in violation of constitutional restraints.”

At this stage of the lawsuit, Trenga concluded, the plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood to succeed on the merits.

A lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which brought the Virginia case on behalf of multiple clients, said he will appeal to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. That court already is scheduled to hear the government’s appeal from the Maryland case on May 8.

Trenga wrote that the current executive order is substantially different from the first travel ban sought by the Trump administration, which also was blocked by multiple judges before it was rescinded in favor of the current order.

The revised order no longer carves out an exception favoring Christians and other religious minorities from Muslim-majority nations included in the ban. It also spells out the administration’s justification for the ban and does not seek cancellation of existing visas.